Article 234 EC ensures that a divergent application of the EC Treaty or of the statutes and acts of its institutions is not allowed in any Member State. Unsurprisingly, its pivotal importance has given rise to a huge number of ECJ judgments and orders – about 700 by the beginning of 2009. Very often, a practitioner needs to establish whether the preliminary ruling procedure called for by Article 234 EC is required in a particular case being pursued in a national court, and any relevant ECJ ruling or order must be located. Herein lies the great value of this book.

Dr Barents’ very useful volume sorts paragraphs of the 700 judgments and orders by subject, making it easy to establish the relevance of a particular Community court ruling to a particular national court proceeding. In this book paragraphs of the judgments and orders are presented in the form of extracts sorted by subject. The subject headings are arranged according to a hierarchical system, descending from such overarching concepts as scope and participation to such precise categories as the following:

situations outside the scope of community law

bodies not considered to be courts or tribunals

arbitration

third persons

rights of participants

formulation of preliminary questions

presumption of relevance of a preliminary reference

violation of the obligation to refer

requirement of a pending dispute

interim measures

modification of preliminary questions

questions rejected by the submitting court

new elements presented during the preliminary procedure

questions lacking precision

retroactive effects of judgments

Paragraphs of judgments relating to more than one subject are included under each relevant heading, where necessary accompanied by cross references to other headings. Under each extract or summary, the judgments and orders are referred to by case number in ascending order. The articles of the EC Treaty are cited according to the new method of citation pursuant to the renumbering of the articles of that treaty brought about by the Treaty of Amsterdam.

There is no doubt that the book’s technique of presenting case law in the form of separate extracts and summaries arranged by topic and sub-topic improves the accessibility of the material. This very practical, time-saving feature will be greatly appreciated by practitioners throughout Europe. This is a reference every European lawyer will want to have on hand.